Hello everybody,
I asked some days ago a question about the number of usability specialists
in the world, and i did not receive a lot of answers. Fortunately, i got
great quality answers and good informations.
First, i must say that some french specialists asked me (in french... that
is why i rewrite their questions) how i could make my estimation of the
french community. It seems that my estimation was very under the reality,
and some told me they tought we were at less double of my original
estimation !
So we could be between 800 and 1600 french "ergonomes" and if the big
majority work in health domain (as human factors specialists...), i am still
confident with my original estimation of the number of web specialists (less
than 100).
I must say that i am a little disapointed about the the "name" and
"fonctions" of what french "ergonomes" could be named in country as USA...
_________________________
Jérôme ERNU
Ergonome, Usability specialist.
01 53 19 75 32
Société Visual Friendly
43 bis rue d'Hautpoul
75019 Paris.
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***
Salut Jerome
There are up to 6000 SIGCHI members at any one time, 500 BHCIG members
(100 or so also in SIGCHI), 1500 subscribers to BHCIG Jiscmail, etc.
This may be something that IFIP TC13 could help with, so I've cc'd
the chair John Karat, it would be useful information to have and
perhaps TC13 could update a central resource annually
Bon Chance
Gilbert
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***
Jerome
I cannot speak for France but I suggest that you widen the search using a
host of keywords. The Human Factors and Ergonomics Society in the USA lists
close to 50 job descriptions that fall under the broad category of HF, E and
Usability for its members. This doesn't even include the community of IA's
that consider that some of their work is usability related.
BTW- the term "Usability" is passé at this point. What do you define as
"Usability"?
****
For me, usability specialized people are doing usability tests and rapports
most of the time... Am i right ?
Jérôme
****
Usability Evaluations (sometimes called "reviews") as well as Testing are a
large part of the business. However, the latest trend is to take the
proactive stance that User-centered design is "constructive" and that the
testing is a validation step. So Usability is holistic in that it now
encompasses both design and evaluation and that about 20 specialized
sub-professionals working in about 100 industries. Here's a breakdown of
Industries:
110-Accident Investigation/reconstruction
120-Aerospace
130-Aging
135-Air Traffic
140-Anthropometry
150-Artificial Intelligence
160-Auditory performance/displays
170-Automated systems
180-Aviation
190-Biochemical
200-Cockpit design/displays/mgmt
210-Cogniitve psychology/engineering
220-Command/control systems
230-Communications
240-Computer-Assisted instruction
245-Computer systems
250-Computer systems hardware
260-Computer systems software
270-Comsumer product/equipment design
280-Control/display design
290-Crew station design
300-Cumulative trauma disorders
310-Decision making/aiding
320-Design
325-Disabilities/ADA
330-Display design
335-Documentation
340-Driver behavior/performance
350-Education
360-Engineering
370-Engineering psychology
380-Environment design
390-Ergonomics
400-Experimental psychology
410-Expert systems
420-Forensics
430-Furniture design
440-Graphical user interface design
450-Human computer interaction/interfaces
460-Human factors engineering
470-Hand tools
480-Healthcare
485-Highway/traffic safety
490-Human error/reliability
500-Human machine system/interfaces
510-Human performance/behavior
520-Industrial/organizational psychology
530-Industrial design
540-Industrial engineering
550-Industrial ergonomics
560-Industrial safety/health
570-Information displays
580-Information processing
590-Industrial design
595-IVHS/ITS
600-Knowledge acquisition
610-Materials handling
620-Medical devices/systems
630-Mental models
640-Mental workload
642-Modeling
645-Multimedia
650-Nuclear power
660-Occupational health/safety
670-Organizational design/mgmt
680-Perception
690-Performance assess/msmt
700-Process control
705-Product design
710-Productivity
715-Psychology
720-Psychophysics
725-Psychophysiology
730-Rehabilitation
740-Repetitive strain injury
750-Research and development
760-Safety/risk assessment
770-Sensory process/perception
780-Simultation
785-Situation awareness
790-Software
800-Speech recognition/processing
810-Statistics
815-Stress
820-Systems anal/level/design
830-Telecommunications
835-Teleoperation/telerobics
840-Test and evaluation
850-Trainig
860-Transportation systems
870-Usability
880-User-system interface
890-VDT ergonomics
900-Virtual reality
910-Visual display design
920-Visual perf/perception
925-Voice 1/0
930-Warnings
940-Work/job design
950-Workload
960-Workstation design
-- M. El-Darwish
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***
The difficulty is one of deciding who to count. For example, in software
engineering, there are numbers to suggest that something around half of the
effort in developing most applications is in building the user interface.
Are people who work on the layout of a screen "usability specialists?"
Are the people who gather requirements for new systems? What academic
credentials constitute qualifications for the title "usability specialist"?
Depending on how you count, I could say that there are between 150 and
15000 "usability specialists" in IBM worldwide - the two orders of
magnitude is a rather lager range. The lower number I would give if I set
as the criteria "Capable of telling a story that would advance the field" -
meaning a potential author of a paper in the field (I use a rather
conservative estimate of roughly half of the people who are part of the
user-centered design community within IBM - thus about 150). The higher
number I would give if I set the criteria as "makes decisions that impact
the design of the "user experience" with a product (I use an estimate of
roughly 5% of the IBM employees here - thus 15,000).
I would like to know the answer myself. As Gilbert says, I could ask the
25 or so national representativs to IFIP TC13 for a number for each of
their countries, but would first have to have some kind of criteria to give
to each for the estimate. Alternatively, I could just ask for estimates
and have people discuss them to see if that helped the concensus build.
All that said, I would estimate the US at 5000 - plus or minus two orders
of magnitude.
Cheers;
John
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The original question was :
Hello dear Chi-Web Members,
The recent article from the NY times make me think about at this
question :
Do you know the number of "usability specialists" in the USA ? Or in
others country as Canada, England or Germany ? (of course, if there is a
link with estimation for each country of the world, it would be perfect
!).
For example, in France, under the term of "ergonome" (wich include i
think, usability specialists, user interface designer, human factors
specialists, Information architects...) we are less than 800 ! And
usability specialists of the Web must be under 100 i think (personal
very optimistic estimation)...
Any idea ?
Please email me directly and i will send a summary to the list.
Thank you,
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